Mayor Karl Dean’s administration recently added more than $150,000 to the Metro payroll by bringing on two employees — one and a half, officially — who had been working as senior officials under former Gov. Phil Bredesen.

The appointment of Tam Gordon by Dean and the hiring of Jim Fyke by Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling have raised questions about the administration’s priorities when city agencies have been asked to cut their budgets once again.

The hires also highlight what seems to be a revolving door between city and state governments for high-level politicos and bureaucrats, who can get two pensions after five years with each government.

Dean and his aides defended the appointments. They cited Gordon and Fyke’s expertise and commitment to public service and the fact that they’ll be making less money than they did at the state. They also said the mayor’s office has been understaffed.

Gordon “is a very proud person,” said Bredesen, who first hired her to be his press secretary when he was elected mayor in 1991.

“It’s not like she’s worked for government all her life. It’s really demeaning to her to think the reason she gets a job is because I call up the mayor and ask him to give her one.”

Bredesen said he wasn’t aware of Fyke’s talks with the city until after Fyke was hired.

Dean says Gordon is needed

Dean hired Gordon, who was a special assistant to Bredesen throughout his two terms as governor, to coordinate the city’s poverty reduction initiative. She’ll also work on other issues and could help with media relations for $89,500 a year — a pay cut of more than 20 percent from her $112,000 salary at the state, where her duties included overseeing the governor’s Children’s Cabinet.

A former Nashville Banner reporter, Gordon resigned from the mayor’s office in 1996 to work for the John Seigenthaler Center, which includes the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center and Diversity Institute. She left there to return to Bredesen’s side at the state in 2003, which also required a pay cut.

Gordon and Dean said they first started talking about a job in the mayor’s administration not long after his election in 2007. Bredesen said he talked his longtime aide out of leaving, and she stayed with him until the end of his term last month.

Gordon said she was attracted by the opportunity to work on poverty, child care, health care and homelessness issues and the chance to vest in Metro’s pension and health benefits system, which she didn’t accrue enough time for in the 1990s.

“That was important to me, too,” she acknowledged.

Gordon, 58, has not applied for a state pension and said she didn’t realize she would qualify for it. Because she worked for the state for more than five years, however, she’ll be eligible for a full pension once she turns 60.

Dean responded sharply to criticism of Gordon’s appointment. He said the poverty reduction initiative needed closer attention from the mayor’s office, and Gordon is the right person for the job.

“Maybe the critics don’t share my passion about the poverty program,” he said.

A $64K part-time job

Fyke, who retired last month after nearly eight years as deputy commissioner and then commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, will be a special assistant to Riebeling, a friend for more than 30 years.

He’ll make $63.23 an hour for 19.5 hours of work a week, which comes out to $64,115 a year for what’s officially a part-time job.

“It’s a pretty good deal if you can get it,” Crafton said.

Getting paid for less than 20 hours a week — though he’s expected to work considerably more — allows Fyke to keep the $57,576-a-year city pension he started earning after 38 years with Metro Parks and Recreation, including 24 as director, before Bredesen recruited him to the state.

Fyke also has started receiving a $10,976 annual pension from the state, records show.

Don Jones, the Metro Council’s retired staff director and legal counsel, has a similar part-time deal with the council. When he retired in 2006, Jones’ $115 hourly rate for legal services brought in as much as $113,000 a year, based on working up to 19 hours a week.

Now Jones makes $125 an hour but is limited to 10 hours a week, capping his annual pay at $65,000, said Jon Cooper, who succeeded Jones as the council’s staff director and lead attorney.

Riebeling said Fyke’s job grew out of a conversation they had over dinner one night last year as Bredesen neared the end of his term. The finance director asked, “What are you going to do?” Fyke replied, “I’d like to work some.”

Riebeling said he eventually concluded he “could use some help,” so he asked Fyke to work on the city’s open-space plan and help Metro Water Services implement a legal settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and the state over the city’s failure to fully comply with the federal Clean Water Act.

Fyke also is expected to evaluate potential sites for a new baseball stadium once the administration bears down on that project.

His salary was based on taking the top pay grade for such a position and cutting it by a bit more than 50 percent, Riebeling said. Fyke was making $113,289 when he retired from Metro in 2003 and about $135,000 when he left the state.

Lack of public process questioned

Catherine McTamaney, an East Nashville neighborhood activist who considered running for Metro Council but decided against it, said the appointments send “an inconsistent message” during hard economic times. She said the positions should have been open to the public, and the Dean administration should have made it clear the jobs were needed before filling them.

“If it turns out that these were the most appropriate people for work that we needed done now, I think they would have risen to the top of a public process that announced the job and analyzed candidates,” McTamaney said. “I don’t think we’ve had an opportunity to do that, which makes it seem questionable, at least.”

Riebeling defended hiring Fyke without a search.

“He’s got fairly unique talents because of his depth of experience,” he said. “I’ve heard some of the criticism, and I understand that, and I don’t really have an answer for that other than I think that based on his experience level, he’s just uniquely qualified to come right in. He can contribute immediately.”

Dean called the criticism “total nonsense.”

“Every position in the mayor’s office is an at-will position,” he said. “In mayoral or executive branch positions like this, you hire the people you want to hire.”

Other staff changes also are possible as Dean winds down his first term and seeks re-election in August.

Movement between state and Metro governments is not uncommon. After Bill Purcell, a former state representative and House majority leader, was elected mayor in 1999, he appointed former State Finance Commissioner David Manning to be his finance director. Purcell also tapped Patrick Willard, who had been his chief of staff in the General Assembly, to be his senior policy adviser.